Dan and I have started an in-vitro fertilization cycle, after 18 months of not being able to conceive. When, a few months ago, our doctor told us that this would be our only chance to have our own baby, we rather quickly decided to go through with it. Now that it’s upon us, it’s a little scarier.

For one thing, there’s the gigantic box of drugs that arrived. To understand the scale here, you should realize that you could fit a small TV into this box. It consisted of three different kinds of injections (with three different gauges of needles), pills, transdermal patches, etc. All of it is temperature-sensitive, and about half of it needs to be below 77°, so we have a shoebox-sized box of those items in our refrigerator. When we opened the box, I realized that over the next six weeks everything in there would eventually end up in my body.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the whole process is the way that our lives, by necessity, revolve around this procedure for the next several weeks. We had to cancel our anniversary trip because my doctor’s office needs to see me every few days. Daily schedules are already being arranged around injection times, and that will only increase as I move from one to three injections per day. And when it’s time for the procedure itself, I’ll lose a whole week due to anesthesia and bed rest and whatnot. Good thing I wasn’t planning to get anything done this summer …

In the end, I’m sure it will be worth it. Our doctor has a very high success rate for our age group, so we’re very encouraged by that. But if I seem cranky, or emotional, or unavailable over the next month or so, think back to the Box-O-Drugs and you’ll know why.

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on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 5:49 am and is filed under Life.
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